Properly to understand biblical eschatology, we must see it as an integral aspect of all of biblical revelation. Eschatology must not be thought of as something which is found only in, say, such Bible books as Daniel and Revelation, but as dominating and permeating the entire message of the Bible. On this point Jürgen Moltmann is certainly correct: "From first to last, and not merely in the epilogue, Christianity is eschatology, is hope, forward looking and forward moving, and therefore also revolutionizing and transforming the present. The eschatological is not one element of Christianity, but it is the medium of the Christian faith as such, the key in which everything in it is set.... Hence eschatology cannot really be only a part of Christian doctrine. Rather, the eschatological outlook is characteristic of all Christian proclamation, and of every Christian existence and of the whole Church."
In order to understand this point, let us take a closer look at the eschatological nature of the biblical message as a whole. In this chapter we shall be looking at the eschatological outlook of the Old Testament; in the next chapter we shall be concerning ourselves with the eschatological perspective of the New Testament.
It has often been said, by biblical scholars who stand in the liberal tradition, that there is very little eschatology in the Old Testament. It must be granted, of course, that Old Testament writers do not give us clear teachings on most of the major doctrines of what we have called "future eschatology": life after death, the Second Coming of Christ, the final judgment, and so on. Yet there is another sense in which the Old Testament is eschatologically oriented from beginning to end. George Ladd puts it this way:
It follows that Israel's hope of the Kingdom of God is an eschatological hope, and that eschatology is a necessary corollary to Israel's view of God. The older Wellhausenian criticism insisted that eschatology was a late development which emerged only in postexilic times.... Recently the pendulum has been swinging in the other direction and the fundamental Israelitic character of eschatology recognized. An increasing number of scholars can be cited who recognize that it was the concept of God who had been concerned with Israel in redemptive history which gave rise to the eschatological hope.
One of the recent scholars cited by Ladd is T. C. Vriezen, who is Professor of Old Testament Studies at the University of Utrecht. Vriezen comments that the eschatological vision which one finds in the Old Testament is "an Israelite phenomenon which has not really been found outside Israel." He goes on to say,
Eschatology did not arise when people began to doubt the actuality of God's kingship in the cult, but when they had to learn in the greatest distress to rely, in faith alone, on God as the only firm basis of life and when this realism of faith was directed critically against the life of the people so that the coming catastrophe was looked upon as a divine intervention full of justice and also so that it was confessed that the Holy God remained unshakable in His fidelity and love to Israel. Thus the life of Israel in history came to have a double aspect: on the one hand judgment was looked upon as near at hand and the re-creation of the community of God as approaching.... Eschatology is a religious certainty which springs directly from the Israelite faith in God as rooted in the history of its salvation.
Vriezen therefore finds eschatology to be integral to the message of both the Old and the New Testaments: "At the heart of the Old Testament message lies the expectation of the Kingdom of God, and it is the initial fulfillment of this expectation in Jesus of Nazareth... that underlies the message of the New Testament. The true heart of both Old Testament and New Testament is, therefore, the eschatological perspective."
Let us now examine the eschatological outlook of the Old Testament in greater detail by looking at some specific revelational concepts in which that outlook is embodied. We begin with the expectation of the coming redeemer. The narrative of the fall found in the opening verses of Genesis 3 is followed immediately by the promise of a future redeemer in verse 15: "I will put enmity between you and the woman, and between your seed and her seed; he shall bruise your head, and you shall bruise his heel." This passage, often called the "mother promise," now sets the tone for the entire Old Testament. The words are addressed to the serpent, later identified as an agent of Satan (Rev. 12:9; 20:2). The enmity placed between mankind and the serpent implies that God, who is also the serpent's enemy, will be man's friend. In the prediction that ultimately the seed of the woman will bruise the serpent's head we have the promise of the coming redeemer. We may say that in this passage God reveals, as in a nutshell, all of his saving purpose with his people. The further history of redemption will be an unfolding of the contents of this mother promise. From this point on, all of Old Testament revelation looks forward, points forward, and eagerly awaits the promised redeemer.
This coming redeemer, described in Genesis 3:15 merely as the seed of the woman, is designated as the seed of Abraham in Genesis 22:18 (cf. 26:4; 28:14). Genesis 49:10 further specifies that the redeemer shall be a descendant of the tribe of Judah. Still later in the course of Old Testament revelation we learn that the coming redeemer will be a descendant of David (II Sam. 7:12-13).
After the establishment of the monarchy, the Old Testament people of God recognized three special offices: those of prophet, priest, and king. The coming redeemer was expected to be the culmination and fulfillment of all three of these special offices. He was to be a great prophet: "The Lord your God will raise up for you a prophet like me [Moses] from among you, from your brethren—him you shall heed" (Deut. 18:15). He was to be an everlasting priest: "The Lord has sworn and will not change his mind, 'You are a priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek'" (Ps. 110:4). He was also to be the great king of his people: "Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem! Lo, your king comes to you..." (Zech. 9:9).
In connection with the kingship of the coming redeemer, it is particularly predicted that he will sit on the throne of David. To David Nathan the prophet said, "When your days are fulfilled and you lie down with your fathers, I will raise up your offspring after you, who shall come forth from your body, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build a house for my name, and I will establish the throne of his kingdom for ever" (II Sam. 7:12-13; cf. Isa. 9:7).
We may also note that sometimes the coming of the future Redeemer King is identified with the coming of God to his people. In Isaiah 7:14, for example, the coming redeemer is specifically called Immanuel, which means "God with us." In Isaiah 9:6 one of the names given to the promised redeemer is "Mighty God." A. B. Davidson comments on this in the following words: "Sometimes the coming [of Jehovah] is accomplished in the line of the Messianic hope—Jehovah comes down among His people in the Messiah, His presence is manifested and realised in him.... God is fully present, for purposes of redemption, in the Messianic king. This is the loftiest Messianic conception."
Alongside of the conception of the coming redeemer as one who will be a prophet, a priest, and a king, however, there appears in Isaiah also the view that the redeemer will be the suffering servant of God. The concept "servant of the Lord" appears frequently in Isaiah, and sometimes designates the nation of Israel while at other times it describes the coming redeemer. Among the Isaianic passages which specifically describe the coming Messiah as the servant of the Lord are 42:1-4, 49:5-7, 52:13-15, and all of 53. It is particularly Isaiah 53 which pictures the coming redeemer as the suffering servant of Jehovah: "He was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities; upon him was the chastisement that made us whole, and with his stripes we are healed" (v. 5). From passages of this sort we learn that the redeemer to whose coming the Old Testament believer looked forward was thought of, at least in the times of the later prophets, as one who would suffer for his people in order to redeem them.
Another way in which the Old Testament depicts the coming of the redeemer is as the son of man. We find this type of expectation particularly in Daniel 7:13-14,
I saw in the night visions,
and behold, with the clouds of heaven
there came one like a son of man,
and he came to the Ancient of Days
and was presented before him.
And to him was given dominion
and glory and kingdom,
that all peoples, nations, and languages
should serve him;
his dominion is an everlasting dominion,
which shall not pass away,
and his kingdom one
that shall not be destroyed.
In the New Testament the Son of Man is particularly identified with the Messiah.
In summary, we may say that the Old Testament believer, in various ways and by means of various figures, looked for a redeemer who was to come sometime in the future (or in "the last days," to use a common Old Testament figure of speech) to redeem his people and to be a light to the Gentiles as well. Peter in his first epistle gives us a vivid picture of the way the Old Testament prophets looked forward to the coming of this Messianic redeemer: "Concerning this salvation, the prophets, who spoke of the grace that was to come to you, searched intently and with the greatest care, trying to find out the time and circumstances to which the Spirit of Christ in them was pointing when he predicted the sufferings of Christ and the glories that would follow" (I Pet. 1:10-11, NIV).
Another revelational concept in which the eschatological outlook of the Old Testament is embodied is that of the kingdom of God. Though the term "kingdom of God" is not found in the Old Testament, the thought that God is king is found, particularly in the Psalms and in the prophets. God is frequently spoken of as King, both of Israel (Deut. 33:5; Ps. 84:3; 145:1; Isa. 43:15) and of the whole earth (Ps. 29:10; 47:2; 96:10; 97:1; 103:19; 145:11-13; Isa. 6:5; Jer. 46:18). Because of the sinfulness and rebelliousness of men, however, God's rule is realized only imperfectly in Israel's history. Therefore the prophets looked forward to a day when God's rule would be fully experienced, not just by Israel, but by all the world.
It is particularly Daniel who develops the thought of the coming kingdom. In chapter 2 of his prophecy he speaks of the kingdom which God shall some day set up, which shall never be destroyed, and which shall break in pieces all other kingdoms and shall stand forever (vv. 44-45). And in 7:13-14, as we saw, to the one like a son of man is given an everlasting dominion and a kingdom which shall not be destroyed. Daniel, therefore, not only predicts the coming of a future kingdom but ties in this kingdom with the coming of the redeemer, described by him as the son of man.
Still another Old Testament concept which has eschatological overtones is that of the new covenant. As many Old Testament scholars have shown, the idea of the covenant is central in Old Testament revelation. In the days of Jeremiah, however, the people of Judah had broken God's covenant with them by their idolatries and transgressions. Though the main burden of Jeremiah's prophecies is one of doom, yet he does predict that God will make a new covenant with his people: "Behold, the days are coming, says the Lord, when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and the house of Judah, not like the covenant which I made with their fathers when I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt, my covenant which they broke" (Jer. 31:31-32; see also 33-34). It is clear from the New Testament (see Heb. 8:8-13; I Cor. 11:25) that the new covenant predicted by Jeremiah was ushered in by our Lord Jesus Christ.
Prominent among the eschatological concepts of the Old Testament is that of the restoration of Israel. After the division of the kingdom both Israel and Judah sank more and more into disobedience, idolatry, and apostasy. The prophets therefore predicted that because of their disobedience the people of both kingdoms would be carried away into captivity by hostile nations, and would be scattered abroad. But in the midst of these somber predictions there are also prophecies of deliverance. Many prophets predict the future restoration of Israel from its captivity.
Note, for example, this prediction by the prophet Jeremiah: "I will gather the remnant of my flock out of all the countries where I have driven them, and I will bring them back to their fold, and they shall be fruitful and multiply" (23:3).
The words of Isaiah 11:11 also come to mind: "In that day the Lord will extend his hand yet a second time to recover the remnant which is left of his people, from Assyria, from Egypt, from Pathros, from Ethiopia, from Elam, from Shinar, from Hamath, and from the coastlands of the sea." It is interesting to note the words "yet a second time" in the passage, which suggest that the future restoration of Israel will be a kind of second Exodus.
It is also important to observe that the restoration of Israel which is predicted in the prophets has ethical overtones. Both Ezekiel (36:24-28) and Isaiah (chaps. 24-27) make the point that this restoration will not take place apart from Israel's repentance and rededication to God's service. As George Ladd points out:
They [the Old Testament prophets] foresee a restoration, but only of a people which has been purified and made righteous. Their message both of woe and of weal is addressed to Israel that the people may be warned of their sinfulness and turn to God. Eschatology is ethically and religiously conditioned.
Perhaps the most significant result of the ethical concern of the prophets is their conviction that it will not be Israel as such that enters into the eschatological Kingdom of God but only a believing, purified remnant.
We also find, particularly in Joel, a prediction of the future outpouring of the Spirit upon all flesh. The well-known words of Joel's prophecy are:
And it shall come to pass afterward,
that I will pour out my spirit on all flesh;
your sons and your daughters shall prophesy,
your old men shall dream dreams,
and your young men shall see visions.
Even upon the menservants and maidservants
in those days, I will pour out my spirit (2:28-29).
This outpouring of the Spirit, therefore, was another of the eschatological events on the horizon of the future for which the Old Testament believer of that time looked with eager anticipation. It is striking, however, that the next verses of Joel's prophecy mention portents in the heavens and on the earth: "And I will give portents in the heavens and on the earth, blood and fire and columns of smoke. The sun shall be turned to darkness, and the moon to blood, before the great and terrible day of the Lord comes" (2:30-31).
Certain New Testament passages (for example, Luke 21:25; Matt. 24:29) relate the signs mentioned above to the Second Coming of Jesus Christ. Yet Joel seems to predict them as if they were to happen just before the outpouring of the Spirit. Unless one interprets these signs in a nonliteral way (in which case the turning of the sun to darkness could be understood as fulfilled in the three hours of darkness while Jesus was on the cross), it would appear that Joel in his prophecy sees as coming together in a single vision events actually separated from each other by thousands of years. This phenomenon, which we may call prophetic perspective, occurs quite frequently in the Old Testament prophets. It occurs also, as we shall see, in some of the apocalyptic passsages of the New Testament.
The Joel passage leads us to consider another prominent eschatological concept of the Old Testament period, that of the day of the Lord. Sometimes in the prophetical writings the day of the Lord is thought of as a day in the near future when God will bring swift destruction upon Israel's enemies. Obadiah, for example, predicts the doom of Edom as the coming of the day of the Lord (vv. 15-16). But the day of the Lord may also refer to a final, eschatological day of judgment and redemption. Sometimes—and this is another illustration of prophetic perspective—a near and a far day of the Lord are seen together, in the same vision. Isaiah 13, for example, speaks of a day of the Lord on the not-too-distant horizon when Babylon will be destroyed (vv. 6-8, 17-22). In the same chapter, however, interspersed between descriptions of the destruction of Babylon, are references to the eschatological day of the Lord in the far distant future:
Behold, the day of the Lord comes,
cruel, with wrath and fierce anger,
to make the earth a desolation
and to destroy its sinners from it.
For the stars of the heavens and their constellations
will not give their light;
the sun will be dark at its rising
and the moon will not shed its light.
I will punish the world for its evil,
and the wicked for their iniquity (vv. 9-11).
It would seem as if Isaiah is seeing the destruction of Babylon and the final, eschatological day of the Lord as if they were one day, one divine visitation.
Very often in the prophets, however, the expression "the day of the Lord" is used to picture a final, eschatological day of visitation. Sometimes the day of the Lord means judgment for Israel. In Amos's day it was common to think that the day of the Lord would bring nothing but blessing and prosperity for Israel. Amos, however, disturbed the common complacency by saying,
Woe to you who desire the day of the Lord!
Why would you have the day of the Lord?
It is darkness, and not light (5:18).
Similarly, Isaiah describes the day of the Lord as a day of judgment for the apostate people of Judah:
For the Lord of hosts has a day
against all that is proud and lofty,
against all that is lifted up and high....
And the haughtiness of man shall be humbled,
and the pride of men shall be brought low;
and the Lord alone will be exalted in that day (2:12, 17).
Zephaniah also speaks of the day of the Lord as a day of wrath:
The great day of the Lord is near,
near and hastening fast;
the sound of the day of the Lord is bitter,
the mighty man cries aloud there.
A day of wrath is that day,
a day of distress and anguish,
a day of ruin and devastation,
a day of darkness and gloom,
a day of clouds and thick darkness... (1:14-15).
It becomes clear from the rest of the book that Zephaniah's day of wrath refers both to a day of judgment for Judah in the immediate future and to a final, eschatological, worldwide catastrophe.
The day of the Lord does not bring only judgment and disaster, however. Sometimes the day is said to bring salvation. So, for example, Joel 2:32 promises salvation to all who call on the name of the Lord before the coming of the day of the Lord. And in Malachi 4 not only is judgment pronounced upon evildoers in connection with the coming of the "great and terrible day of the Lord" (v. 5), but healing and joy are promised to all who fear God's name (v. 2). We may summarize by noting that the day of the Lord predicted by the Old Testament prophets will be a day of judgment and wrath for some but of blessing and salvation for others.
Though the concept of the day of the Lord often connotes gloom and darkness, there is still another Old Testament eschatological concept which has a brighter ring: that of the new heavens and the new earth. The eschatological hope of the Old Testament always included the earth:
The biblical idea of redemption always includes the earth. Hebrew thought saw an essential unity between man and nature. The prophets do not think of the earth as merely the indifferent theater on which man carries out his normal task but as the expression of the divine glory. The Old Testament nowhere holds forth the hope of a bodiless, nonmaterial, purely "spiritual" redemption as did Greek thought. The earth is the divinely ordained scene of human existence. Furthermore, the earth has been involved in the evils which sin has incurred. There is an interrelation of nature with the moral life of man; therefore the earth must also share in God's final redemption.
This future hope for the earth is expressed in Isaiah 65:17:
For behold, I create new heavens and a new earth;
and the former things shall not be remembered
or come into mind (cf. 66:22).
Other passages from Isaiah indicate what this renewal of the earth will involve: the wilderness will become a fruitful field (32:15), the desert shall blossom (35:1), the dry places will be springs of water (35:7), peace will return to the animal world (11:6-8), and the earth shall be full of the knowledge of the Lord as the waters cover the sea (11:9).
Let us now sum up what we have learned about the eschatological outlook of the Old Testament. At the very beginning, there was an expectation of a coming redeemer who would bruise or crush the head of the serpent. As time went on, there was a growing enrichment of eschatological expectation. The various items of this expectation were certainly not all held at once, and they assumed various forms at various times. But if we may think of these concepts in a cumulative way, we may certainly say that at various times the Old Testament believer looked for the following eschatological realities in the future:
All these things loomed on the horizon of expectation. The Old Testament believer had, of course, no clear idea as to how or when these expectations would be fulfilled. As far as he was concerned, at some future time, variously called the "day of the Lord," the "latter days," the "coming days," or "at that time," these eschatological events would all happen together.
With characteristic prophetic perspective, the Old Testament prophets intermingled items relating to the first coming of Christ with items relating to Christ's second coming. Not until New Testament times would it be revealed that what was thought of in Old Testament days as one coming of the Messiah would be fulfilled in two stages: a first and a second coming. What was therefore not clear to the Old Testament prophets was made clear in the New Testament era.
But we must say again that the faith of the Old Testament believer was eschatological through and through. He looked forward to God's intervention in history, both in the near future and in the distant future. It was, in fact, this forward-looking faith which gave the Old Testament saint courage to run the race that was set before him. The eleventh chapter of Hebrews, as it looks back at the Old Testament heroes of faith, particularly makes this point. Of Abraham it is said, "He looked forward to the city which has foundations, whose builder and maker is God" (v. 10). Of all the patriarchs it is said, "These all died in faith, not having received what was promised, but having seen it and greeted it from afar..." (v. 13). And of all the Old Testament saints taken together the following is said: "And all these, though well attested by their faith, did not receive what was promised, since God had foreseen something better for us, that apart from us they should not be made perfect" (vv. 39-40).